Volume 9 , Issue 44

Gateway To San Juans of Southwest Colorado

The pugs and I took a drive through Southwest Colorado on CO550 heading up the million dollar highway from Durango to Silverton. After reaching Silverton, we took the Colorado highway leading towards Ouray, Ridgway, Montrose and back again to Ridgway, Colorado. We even traveled over Red Mountain Pass in this week's journey.

From Ridgway, Colorado we caught CO62 towards Placerville and hooked up with CO145 leading us in the vicinity of Telluride, but not passing through it. That is where we turned the other way towards Dolores and Cortez, Colorado before hooking up with CO160, in Durango and returning to Bayfield that evening. It is a great drive, but a better drive when the Fall folliage is showing its brillant colors.

IF - WHEN - You get to visited this area of Southwest Colorado and Ridgway, Colorado, you must make a stop at the True Grit Cafe. Across from the "True Grit Cafe" is a park with an old tree trunk that has been carved into what looked to this writer as Southwest Colorado's Statute of Liberty. BUT... if you view this carving from all sides, you would get three different views.

One side shows an eagle holding a torch -- another side shows a mountain man holding a torch -- on the third side it appears that a goose is holding the torch with its wing.

Did you ever see the movie, True Grit, with John Wayne playing a drunken US Marshal, Rooster J. Cogburn, looking for an outlaw, killer in Indian Territory?

True Grit's filming took place mainly in Ouray County, Colorado, in the vicinity of Ridgway (now the home of the True Grit Cafe), and near the town of Ouray. The courtroom scenes were filmed at Ouray County Court house in Ouray, Colorado. Ouray, Colorado is located near "Box Canyon Falls & Hot Springs."   |  View or Add Comments (0 Comments)   |   Receive updates ( subscribers)  |   Unsubscribe

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